The Argument Over Tomatoes
by KatyRose4
Summary: A few years after the strike, Spot is living on a farm with his wife Madeline. The two biggest hot heads of Santa Fe have an intense, and rather awkward, dinner together. It features lots of yelling.


**Author's Note: Written for the Newsies Pape Selling Competition.**

 **Word Count (Including Author's Note): 986**

 **Task: Choose at least two prompts and use the emotions as the main point for the story.  
**

 **Prompts: Red (Anger), Orange (Disappointment), Yellow (Egotistical/Snobby)**

In Santa Fe, 1905, Sean Conlon and his wife Madeline sat down for dinner. It started out quite normal. But things escalated quickly.

"Okay, so what do I have to work with today?" Madeline sounded rather cheery, but Sean was not at ease. The wrong answer could send her into a tailspin. Sean had come back with the food. "Let me guess," she said with a smile, "Beans, and turkey or beef jerky." That was pretty much what they had every day.

"Well I don't know what kind of jerky it is," which made Madeline worried, "But I also got canned tomatoes." The food was perfect for Sean, but it would prove a challenge for Madeline. She detested tomatoes with every fiber of her being. Sean could tell that she wasn't happy.

"Okay."

Although she hadn't said anything explicitly rude and hadn't meant to get him upset, Sean mentally accused her of being passive aggressive. He knew he was well above calling out the love of his life on such behavior, but was quite tempted to yell at her. Normally he would feel bad for her, but after two years of living with her, it was getting kind of old. He had lost any sense of sympathy and there had never been any empathy to begin with. She had been rich, he was poor, and he simply couldn't relate to her.

She turned her nose up at everything he gave her. Nothing was good enough for her, and she wasn't good enough for him. There was frustration all around. All Sean wanted was to please her for _once_ but that didn't seem possible. Madeline couldn't live up to his expectations, though he hadn't realized he had any. He held his tongue, but when it came time to finally eat and he saw Madeline picking at her food, he lost it.

"Is it really that bad?" He hadn't raised his voice (yet) but he was clearly annoyed.

"It's just that...There's a lot of tomatoes and you know I don't like tomatoes…If you were going to splurge, couldn't you get peaches instead?"

"But I like tomatoes and we never get to eat them." In all fairness, they didn't eat peaches too frequently either. And it was something they both enjoyed.

"I realize that, and I'm not mad at you for not buying them." A lie. "I'm just reiterating the food that I like and the food that I don't."

"No need, Sweetheart. I already know your preferences." And now he was being passive aggressive."Look, just don't eat them if you hate them much."

"But there aren't enough beans and jerky to go around."

Madeline could tell that something was wrong with Sean. She didn't know what his problem was, she just knew he wasn't happy. And she took a wild guess as to why. "You have to understand that I grew up in a wealthy family. I'm used to the finest fish, meat, fruit, bread, whatever I want, and however much I want. Good quality food too. I'm not used to canned vegetables, cheap dried meat, and beans. And I'm certainly not used to eating the same thing every day."

"What, so this isn't good enough for you? It's not like you married me for food." His relationship with her had been built on love. Her relationship with him had been built on less morally acceptable grounds. But she hadn't married him for something that stupid.

"I know, I'm just saying...Try not to be so hard on me."

"I'm not giving you a hard time at all. You're acting like some sort of princess."

At every mention of her previous life, she wanted to scream. "Do you see me in a fancy townhouse with a butler and silk sheets? Or wearing designer clothes and gorging on enough food to make sick? No, I'm not. And _you_ are _such_ a hypocrite. Try looking in a mirror!" She nearly spat in his face and her cheeks were turning bright red. Spot was losing his temper too. Neither realized that they were so focused on each other that they weren't paying attention to themselves. But Madeline collected her thoughts and took a deep breath. "I think you should be more sympathetic."

"I think you need to suck it up and eat. You know how many boys back home would kill for this? Consider yourself lucky."

"I eat, okay. It's just a difficult adjustment. I've faced less than ideal situations before, at fancy parties, but those were for one night only. I was fine eating like this the first few days. But I'm eating a cheap version of a food that I don't even like fresh, and the portions are small for me. I need time to get used to this, and you need to be okay with that...This wasn't what I wanted." Sean knew she wasn't talking about food.

"Well this wasn't what I wanted either. And will you just shut up for a minute? I can barely get a word in."

"Go on ahead, I'm all ears." She crossed her arms and gave him the look of death.

"Suddenly, I don't feel like talking." He took a big bite of tomatoes. The bite was so big they were falling out of his mouth and they looked disgusting. (That was intentional.) And they ate the rest of their meal in cold silence.


End file.
